


If You Don't

by GlitterDwarf



Category: The O.C.
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 14:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterDwarf/pseuds/GlitterDwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth remembers the exact moment he realized how scared he was to leave for college. (Written in 2006)</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Don't

i. 

When Seth was young he had often entertained the idea of going away. Even as a kid, Little Seth was aware that the ocean wasn't just for play or for fun, but that it could be used to escape and to leave. Sailing was the love of his life, which was too bad, he realized later, because sailing was such a yuppie thing to love. Except he _was_ a yuppie, kind of, comic book and other generically geeky tendencies aside. 

But being on his own and doing all of those alone-things made the idea of leaving a lot easier, which is why he liked it. It’s what makes the newness of always being with someone, and sometimes more than one someone, so scary. 

 

ii. 

Being high isn’t anything like Seth thought it would be. Of course, this makes sense since, before his first “Toking Up,” as he likes to think of it, his whole experience with Mary Jane had been Cheech and Chong, Reefer Madness-–the new one, not the old one–-and, well, his father, but he doesn’t like to think of the last one because of the immense level of lame. 

But the important thing is that he thought it would be nice and relaxing, like those days where he knew he could always just pull up anchor and sail wherever the ocean took him and still be back before dinnertime. But it isn’t very much like that, because instead it’s like being friends with Ryan-–beautiful and great and all those lovely descriptors, but always undercut with increasing sadness. The only difference is that marijuana isn’t addicting unless you let it be, whereas Seth is pretty sure he never chose to become addicted to Ryan, that it had just happened. 

It’s enough to make him wish he had borrowed more. 

 

iii. 

Seth remembers everything about the last time that he would ever have sex with Summer. He didn't know that this is what it was, the last time, an important time, but he can still remember even the smallest detail. A lifetime of unwilling celibacy will sharpen the mind as it dulls the ego.

Mostly, he remembers the little things, like the shape of her calf, that one lock of hair that remained unruly against her forehead, how she smelled a bit like sweat when he had put his face in the nape of her neck. When he asked about it later, she had smacked him playfully and explained that she had worked out before she came over. He never told her how much he had liked that.

But the thing he remembers the most is putting her dress back on for her. He had bunched it up and lifted his arms to put it over her head. Summer had blushed, raised her arms in the air, and he had dropped the almost-flimsy fabric over her head. And when he reached behind her head to pull her hair out from underneath the dress she had smiled, a smile he had never seen before, looked up, and kissed him. 

It was tender, cliche, and it was a lot better than watching her shimmy back into her jeans. 

 

iv. 

Seth remembers the exact moment he realized how scared he was to leave for college. 

It was Wednesday, and like any other day he was about five seconds away from making himself and Ryan late to school and he still hadn’t chosen a shirt. And, like any other day, all of his shirts were clean, even the light blue and white checkered button up he had worn yesterday because Summer mentioned off-handedly that she liked it on him. Of course, this off-hand remark had come while they were making out, as all of the best off-handed remarks came. 

It was then that he realized that his closet isn’t, in fact, magic, and that laundry has to be done, and this is why there are rooms made specifically for it and it is called the “Laundry Room” and that, in a few months, he would be doing his own laundry. And while this fit in with his glorified version of what a starving poet looked like, grungy and doing things on his own, he realized that he had no clue as to how to wash his own laundry or cook his own dinner or do anything that had to do with survival. 

Seth now can’t even remember why he wanted to leave in the first place. 

 

vi. 

When Summer breaks up with Seth, the first place he goes is to the pool house, even though he is pretty sure he is risking walking in on the mismatched, flailing limbs that are RyanandMarissa, since they haven’t yet figured out how to extract into two people since they made up for the fifteenth time this semester. 

He gets there and it is just Ryan, no Marissa, and he is doing homework, because he seems to be the only Senior at Harbor who hasn’t gotten the message that they are graduating in a few precious weeks and homework was a thing of the High School past and College future. 

When Ryan turns around in his chair, Seth can’t really think of anything to do because his mind is so full of sailing and marijuana and Summer in flimsy dresses and dirty laundry and facial hair and the shapes of calves. So instead he just leans forward in his own seat and kisses Ryan, hands hanging uselessly at his side. When Ryan kisses back his hands stop being useless and start being embarrassingly insistent. 

He doesn’t tell Ryan that he and Summer aren’t an item anymore until later, after he has pulled his wrinkled pants back onto his hips, washed the scent of sweat and books off of his skin, and settled himself into the cold and inviting leather interior of the Range Rover the next morning. 

Ryan, much like the night before, says nothing at all. 

 

vii. 

The entire graduating class of 2006 is so small that they don’t even need to use the sprawling auditorium, financed by some of the most affluent parents. They don’t need to use the lush courtyard, financed by two specific parents after their child got into a highly publicized fight on campus. Instead, they all fit nicely into the gardens, financed by a different set of parents who wanted to make sure that their child graduated at all. 

The night is barely falling and the white sheets draped everywhere are already bathed in a bright glow, shown up only by the beauty that is Summer’s hair in the same light. Ryan is a row ahead of him and three people to the left, Summer is three rows behind him, Taylor is a few people to the right of Summer, and Marissa is right next to Seth in the most karma-tastic turn that day. 

Still, it is these few moments that he has left to enjoy before he is on his own, turned loose to the world. He started High School with no friends and, as it turns out, is going to college with no friends coming with him. 

So, in the end, Seth decides to enjoy where he is. The only problem is, he doesn’t exactly know where that is.


End file.
